


if the heavens can be both sacred and dust (oh, maybe so can the rest of us)

by sesquidpedalian



Series: solanaceae [5]
Category: Dr. STONE (Anime)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Dialogue Heavy, Friendship, Gen, Late Night Conversations, Light Angst, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Set after the season 1 finale, before using the canon compliant tag becomes questionable, for now, this is really just a game of how many headcanons can i cram in here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:59:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28459389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sesquidpedalian/pseuds/sesquidpedalian
Summary: Gen and Ruri have more in common than they think. They learn about each other by the light of the winter stars.
Relationships: Asagiri Gen & Ruri
Series: solanaceae [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1743325
Kudos: 18





	if the heavens can be both sacred and dust (oh, maybe so can the rest of us)

**Author's Note:**

> so I thought I was done Having Feelings about Dr Stone but then I rewatched the season finale and literally could not sleep because I was thinking about this
> 
> title from "Hieroglyphs" by The Oh Hellos

To Gen’s credit, he barely flinches when Ruri pulls herself up onto the rooftop beside him. He murmurs a hello as Ruri scrambles up the last little bit, flushing at her own gracelessness. 

“Ah, sorry, I should have warned you I was coming up.”

“It’s no trouble, Ruri dear.” He shuffles over to make room for her, breath puffing into the cold night air.

Ruri gets settled and pretends not to see how his hands twitch slightly, folded in his lap. Low and teasing, Gen says, “I wouldn’t think you the type to be up so late. Don’t you need your beauty sleep?”

She gives him the answer he’s expecting. “I’m the priestess of Ishigami Village. I can’t rest until I know every person here is resting too.”

“What a heavy burden to bear.” A breath. “How did you know I would be up here, my dear?”

“I noticed you like being in high places. I only had to look up,” Ruri chirps. She giggles at Gen’s raised eyebrow.

“Made quite the climb, too,” Gen says. He leans precariously forward, peering at the ground far below them. “Where did you learn to scale buildings? Weren’t you raised as a girl, not a cat?”

“Kohaku taught me. She’s been showing me a lot of things I never got the chance to really learn.”

Gen’s eyes glint in the moonlight. They’re not as striking as Senku’s ember-light irises or Kohaku’s, the colour of sun-shot ocean waves, but they are dark and watchful and keep darting over to her, kindness glittering in them like a pearlescent promise.

“You must be happy. To be healthy again. How different it must be from the way you were living for so many years.”

Ruri nods, grinning when the wind ruffles her hair. “I’ve been having so much fun! Especially with all this excitement livening up the village thanks to you and Senku. It makes me feel like a little kid sometimes, running around just because I can now.”

Gen’s expression softens and he tilts his head away in that way she’s learned means he’s repressing a smile. “What a life you’ve lived.”

“I’d say the same of you, Asagiri Gen.” Ruri takes a moment to look at him properly, under the glow of the stars and the crescent moon. There is a certain way he folds his hands, so neat, a certain way he crosses his ankles and smiles until it nearly reaches his eyes, a certain way it doesn’t get there, not quite. Ruri makes her choice before she realizes what she’s doing. 

The oddly familiar thrill that comes with going against propriety is all the warning she gets before she hears herself say, “I wanted to talk to you. That song we heard today. It must have been really sad for you, to hear something from your time and to know…” 

_To know it’s gone now_.

“So you came to keep me company?” Gen laughs, careless, light. “There are certainly things I remember fondly about the old world, but it wasn’t always perfect. That time is gone now, and I’ve made my peace with it.” He makes a sweeping gesture that encompasses the whole of the sleeping village, the faintly glittering waters, the shadowed treetops under the sparkling sky. “Look. It’s a gorgeous view, isn’t it? We sure didn’t have many opportunities to see anything like this back then. I must say, I think I like it here.”

That has the ring of truth to it.

“There’s no need to worry about me.” And he smiles, but that doesn’t have any kind of truth to it at all.

“Well, I’ll stay here and keep you company anyway,” Ruri says, kicking her feet and feeling small. She squares her shoulders against it, and keeps watching Gen out of the corner of her eye.

Idly, as if he isn’t dodging the subject, Gen mumbles, “It’s probably worse for Senku.” 

“Ishigami Byakuya,” Ruri says, understanding. Gen wasn’t driven out here by fear. He had come up here out of worry.

“I figured I should leave him alone for a bit. Night is the only time he can _be_ alone.” In the silence that follows, he turns those fox-sharp eyes on Ruri. “You would know a thing or two, wouldn’t you, about always being under someone’s watch?” 

“It sounds cruel when you put it like that,” Ruri murmurs, smiling. “They wish me as much good as I do them.”

“Yeah?” Gen rests his chin on his hand, thoughtful. Some of the stiffness goes out of his posture. “Well-meaning or not, certain things can’t be fixed by having people hover over you.”

Ruri pokes him, gently. “I think he would have liked your company. But you’re right. I get the feeling Senku isn’t the type of person who can grieve with other people around.”

“If either of us were there, he’d probably try to laugh it off. ‘Me? Upset about losing my only family? Nah, don’t be ridiculous!’” Gen rolls his eyes, and even that motion is the picture of poise. “This is the best I can do.” It doesn’t sound like a question, but Ruri answers anyway.

“It can be difficult to accept, but there’s only so much any of us can do,” she tells him. “As long as you’re there when he needs you, things will be all right.”

“I certainly hope so, Miss Priestess.” Gen’s eyes are dark as an owl’s. He shakes his head slightly. “It’s your history too, you know.”

“Yes… To think I got a chance to hear the words of the people who founded this village, and gave me and all the other people here the opportunity to be alive at all.” Ruri looks out over her village and feels her heart thump in her chest, alive with the weight of the past, alive with the hum of unthinkable stretches of time and space. “It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

“It’s incomprehensible,” Gen murmurs. The darkness paints him in monochrome shades.

“It is,” Ruri agrees, unable to stop how her voice wavers again at the knowing. “And it’s beautiful. That humans could make anything like that, to transmit our voices across millennia, across oceans… How miraculous, don’t you think?”

“What’s miraculous is that any of us are still alive,” Gen says. “You, in particular. It’s a wonder you’re still here.” He fiddles with his sleeves, a furtive motion meant to better hide the flowers he was playing with before Ruri arrived, and they both understand what he really means.

Strength, Ruri supposes, is its own kind of miracle.

“Some of us might not be alive for much longer, if Tsukasa’s really serious about this war,” Gen says eventually. His tone is a practiced blank that makes Ruri want to offer him a hug.

“Senku will give everything he has to make sure that doesn’t happen,” she replies, and she makes it a promise because there is nothing else she can do. She sits on her hands, watching her village. The blood in her ears is a prayer. “I will do everything in my power to help as well.”

“Of course he will. Of course you will.” Gen makes an elegant gesture at nothing in particular, one long purple sleeve rustling in the faint breeze. “We all will. It doesn’t change what Tsukasa is like. It doesn’t change what _Hyoga_ is like.”

“Senku isn’t the only one who feels guilty about this stone war, is he?” Ruri says, tilting her head to catch his gaze.

Gen blinks at her, surprised, and then smiles, rueful. “I’m that transparent, huh? You’re sweet,” he says, half to himself. “None of you did anything to deserve getting dragged into this mess.”

“We joined you willingly, Gen.” She reaches over and taps on the back of his hand, an echo of the gesture she’s seen him use so many times on the other kids. Important reminders. “Don’t forget that we chose this. Every person in Ishigami Village is choosing to stand with you guys.” Because it’s dark and because it’s Gen and because they both understand the line between duty and play, she grins when she adds, “Not even the manganese batteries could scare us away.”

Gen laughs, tilting his face up toward the glittering cosmos. “Not even that? Are you sure? It was a _lot_ of batteries.” 

“It was,” she says amicably. “We’re still here.”

Gen leans slightly toward her, which is probably as close to asking as he’s ever going to get. She scoots over to press their shoulders together, and as the wash of waves and the glimmer of the stars cocoons them, they feel each other breathe, feel the universe sink into them, expansive and impossible.

Ruri waits for Gen to break the silence first, and he does.

“Thank you, my dear.”

“You’re welcome.”

When he turns back to her, his eyes are bright, alive. “Ready to make the second phone?”

“We’re going to need even more batteries? What a lot of work this science is.” Ruri asks, raising her eyebrows but unable to suppress her smile.

“It’s going to _suck_.”

“It’ll be worth it. And it won’t be so bad if we both work on it.”

Gen gives her a look.

Ruri giggles and relents. “Okay, so it might suck a little bit.”

Gen bares his teeth and taps a finger, twice, on her forearm. “I think I’m going to quite like you, Ruri dear.”

“Do you want to be friends?” she asks, startled at her own delight when this makes Gen laugh again.

“You know, darling, I don’t think this is how people normally make friends.”

Ruri yawns behind one hand, and finds she can’t bring herself to be embarrassed. It’s too late and too dark out for that. “Well, I wouldn’t know,” she says primly. “It’s been a while since I’ve had any practice making new friends the normal way.”

Gen squints at her, something like sorrow flitting across his face. “I’m starting to see the family resemblance now,” he mutters.

Ruri beams, swinging her legs in the least priestess-like fashion possible. Jasper and Turquoise would have fits if they saw her now. She says, “You haven’t answered my question.”

If not for Gen’s studiously pensive face, she’d think he had no reply. She waits him out, listening to the lambent waves against the shore.

“My answer is yes. I’d like that. To be friends with you, dear.”

Ruri nods decisively. “We’re friends then.”

The corner of Gen’s mouth twitches, his eyes crinkling warmly. “That was fast.”

“If it makes us both happy, and it isn’t going to hurt anyone, why should we wait?” she asks him patiently.

He huffs. He doesn’t drop his head onto her shoulder, but it’s a near thing. “Can’t argue with that. You might be the first person in this stone world to call me their friend.”

Ruri makes a curious noise. “What about Senku?”

Gen shrugs, a motion she feels as much as sees. “You know how he gets. I don’t doubt for a second he cares, but…”

She understands. “It’s one thing to know something. It’s another thing to hear it said.”

“Took the words right out of my mouth,” Gen murmurs, eyes on the darkness below their dangling feet. Then he turns those knowing eyes on her. “What was it like, to hear the people you came from?”

_Your history too._

She doesn’t decide to repay the warmth of his arm pressed against hers with honesty. She just does. It never occurs to her to do otherwise. “It was beautiful.”

“You already said that, darling,” Gen coos, eyes half-lidded, staring at nothing.

“It was a good reminder, I think,” she says, regaining control of her voice. “About the importance of my position in the village. I carry the Hundred Tales. We’ve kept our history this long, and now it’s up to me to ensure the chain is unbroken.” The furs she wears are heavy on her back. “Our descendants deserve to know their history. I have to make sure it gets to them.”

“What do you become, then, if you’re only a vessel for your people’s history?” The look that flickers her way might have been pity, had the person doing the looking not been Gen. “You are still human.”

Ruri shakes her head. “It’s an honour to be the one bearing our village’s Tales. And I’m not _chained_ to it. There are still little freedoms.” She exhales. “I grew up with all this. I always knew it was going to be my responsibility. It doesn’t bother me. And now all this…It’s been fun, these past few months. This is a better life than anything I could have asked for.”

Gen hums in thought. “You’re…” Seems to change his mind about something. “You’re completely sure you know what you’re getting into?”

“I know. The people I love could get seriously hurt. Maybe worse. Maybe we lose and everything Ishigami Byakuya worked for will be destroyed. Maybe with this war, the history our people carried all the way to our current time and place will be lost. We have a graveyard, Gen. I perform the burial rites for every single one of them. I know, and I will do every single thing in my power to keep those things from happening, but I still choose this. We all do.”

“Ah,” Gen says mildly, toneless. “I underestimated you people.”

Ruri giggles, and it sounds small and fragile in the cold. “Senku tried to warn me too. If you’re anything like him, I’m guessing you want to apologize now.”

“Well this is just getting uncanny,” Gen mutters, averting his gaze. “Do you need me here for this conversation at all?”

“Of course I do.” And because she’s starting to understand, she says this as Ruri-the-girl, not Ruri-the-priestess. “I love them. Kohaku and Suika and Kaseki and Jasper and Turquoise and all the rest of them. I know—” She imagines Lillian, the blue eyes and golden hair. She wonders where Lillian’s bones are now, and how weighted the possibilities must have been in her hands. She can’t stop her voice from breaking. “I know what we—what I’m risking.”

“You’re even more like me than I thought,” Gen says. “Who’s feeling guilty now?”

“We have to hope it will be okay.”

“If you say so, dear.” He sighs, then nudges her, growing abruptly playful. “It’s getting cold up here. Wanna see who can climb down fastest?” 

Ruri lets herself be swept along by it. “It’s _dark_! What if you get hurt?”

“We have to get back on the ground somehow,” Gen says, eyes bright, and for half a second, he reminds her so much of Chrome her heart aches. He turns away and leans forward like he’s planning on tipping right off the edge into freefall.

“Don’t hurt yourself!” she yelps.

“Goodness, thank you for the vote of confidence,” Gen says. Then he glances at her and his shoulders slump in despair. “You meant it, didn’t you.”

“Yes!”

Gen frowns mournfully. “You’re too kind. What am I supposed to do with that?”

“You’re kind too. You’ve done so much for the village. Your efforts are recognized and appreciated.”

Gen watches her with appraising eyes and she tilts her chin up, unthinking.

“It’s a miracle you’re still alive,” he says softly. “Really.” 

Suddenly, Gen yawns, which makes Ruri yawn too. They giggle at each other, half-drunk on sleepiness.

“We should probably climb down,” she says, but the part of her that’s still just a teenage girl wants to stay here longer, to linger and laugh under the star-streaked skies until the weight of history on her shoulders lightens with the wandering moon.

“Wait,” Gen says, tapping the back of her hand. A passing gust of wind musses up his hair. “Do you know what a museum is?”

“No. Should I?”

“It’s a place where pieces of the past are stored and displayed so people can know their history. There’s this poem I know…”

They end up trading words long into the night, his half-remembered poetry for her carefully cultivated Tales, until they both nearly fall asleep right there, teetering on the edge of creating their own strange and brilliant history.


End file.
